Creative Zen Mosaic MP3 Player

(Review) - After the launch of its Zen line of compact music players, Creative has announced another contender to take on Apple’s value-oriented iPod music player. The new checkered design is interesting, but we just aren’t too fond of it. It looks too amateur, and frankly, we expected better from Creative. Sure, other Zen music players aren’t exactly Oscars worthy in design either, but we liked them better, if for nothing else but their simplicity, than Mosaic.

Available in black, gray and pink, it offers a variety of shades per color and consumes the entire device. It’s a different design certainly, but just not quite up to our expectations. The controls buttons, of which there are nine in total, are located right below the display in nine checkered boxes. The controls include four directional arrows and four shortcut keys for play/pause, a dedicated back button, a contextual menu and a shortcut menu. The keys are slightly difficult to press if you have large fingers, since they are so close to each other, but for the price tag that Mosaic falls under, perhaps we can let it slide. And finally, then there’s the headphones jack and a USB port at the bottom, a great location for both.

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On the user interface side, Creative is as solid as ever. There are a number of themes available for personalization and moving content back-and-forth off the player is super easy. For Windows users, you can mostly drag-and-drop content, or sync it using Windows Media Player or Rhapsody without installing a piece of software. How great is that! That’s for audio and other content, such as images. Going through images is quite interesting as well. If they are sorted out in folders, you can go through folders, and "click" on thumbnails to view larger versions. The device also supports slideshows and photo viewing capabilities with music playback. Moreover, you get a somewhat split screen to go through your photos, video images and photos when you are browsing a specific media group.

Life is good on the content side, except when it comes to video. That’s when you need to install the included Creative Centrale software to convert standard video to make it compatible with Mosaic. It’s Windows-only for now, but it gets the job done. Another program, ZenCast, is also available for managing podcasts, including subscribing, organizing and transferring. It’s not included in the software bundle, but it can be downloaded from Creative’s Website separately.

On the features front, you get access to the standard audio options, AVI for video, which must be converted and JPEG for photos. Although there’s no line-in recording for audio or video, you do get a built-in Mic for voice recording with an FM tuner with autoscan and 32 preset stations. Unfortunately, there’s no room for storage expansion through SD. You are limited to the size you get: 2GB or 4GB. In addition, you have access to the standard calendar and contact management aspect of the interface. Then there are the nine preset EQ options, a five-band, user-defined mode, and a bass boost option to customize audio. Not to mention, Creative has even included an external speaker on the back to share your music with friends. Naturally, it’s only decent.

Creative’s Mosaic performs exceptionally well on the performance front with superb audio and crystal audio quality. Very clear. Bass does well, too, with solid thumps in our test track. However, make sure to pair it with a great pair of earphones for maximum enjoyment. Thanks to full volume, it was a great experience. The audio player is rated for 36 hours of audio and 5 hours of video, which also did well with quality, but obviously, there is some pixilation present there.

For $59.99 for the 2GB version, this is a great alternative to Apple’s iPod offerings, if you are in the market for one. We aren’t too fond of the design, but it’s performance is unlike any other - excellent!

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